Telugu-language radio was first broadcast from AIR Chennai, Egmore (then-Madras or Chennapatnam) on 16 June 1938 at 8:15 pm when the Madras state Prime Minister Kurma Venkata Reddy Naidu and Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari delivered inaugural speeches.
In July 1939 it was renamed as Deccan Radio, and on 1 April 1950 the Government of India took control from the Nizam and operated it as Akashavani.
AIR operated Telugu-language stations in Vijayawada (1948), Hyderabad (1950), Visakhapatnam (1963) and Kadapa (1963) in Andhra Pradesh.
These cities were categorized by a letter grade (A-grade, Hyderabad; B-grade, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam; C-grade, Kakinada etc.).
Born on 1 July 2006, TORi is the first global Telugu broadcast service which offered original programming on a regular schedule in five different world time zones: Sydney (Australia EST); IST; UTC; US Eastern and US Pacific.